The tall, dark haired Detective standing off to one side of the morgue with a coffee in one hand is like a coiled spring of inactivity, desperate for release. The efficient Doctor, often regarded as cold, is nothing but poised and composed as she drags her scalpel through the rippling flesh of her latest charge. With her sharp eyes focused and drawn to the information slowly emerging on her table, Doctor Maura Isles should feel a sense of calmness, perhaps mingled with slight elation.

After all, the fact she has just discovered a wealth of invaluable details about this human being's life will surely be enough to sate the Detective's appetite for leads.

A month of working with this woman has led to nothing more than polite smiles, professional exchanges and a quite irritating notion that she must provide 'educated guesses' when she has yet to sift through every shred of evidence at her disposure.

There is no use for guesses in her field of work. There is no room for 'gut feelings' or things that cannot be proven outright by the various items of specialized equipment or by her deft handiwork and close examination of the facts.

This Detective, Detective Jane Rizzoli, seems incapable of mastering this concept. The concept of not providing her with instantaneous gratification in the form of misconstrued guesses and insinuations did not seem to be something the other woman could grasp. A notion so complex that instead of allowing the Doctor time to compose her evaluation and present it in a coherent fashion she would stand there and watch. Sometimes for the entire duration of the autopsy itself if that was the time it took for Maura to present her findings.

Doctor Isles was certainly not averse to having colleagues present during an autopsy. In the past she had found that many Detectives would lose patience and demand answers. Or, in other cases, they would cover their inherent disgust with bravado until the first incision was made. After that, Maura would not see them down in her territory again. However, during those rare occasions when a colleague evidently respected her work and was prepared to wait, in silence, without distraction, for the information, Maura found that she rather liked the company.

Company who did not force her to attempt to engage with them on a less than professional level and people that did not expect conversational finesse or knowledge of social cues.

The heat of this particular Detective's gaze never went unnoticed. Although Maura Isles was far from confident in her abilities to read her fellow human beings, she nevertheless knew that there was something different about Detective Jane Rizzoli.

She was the epitome of respect and self control. A mass of unruly dark hair concealed even darker eyes that had the power to reduce colleagues and suspects alike to quivering, shaking things, desperate to confess their secrets if only to escape her glare.

Unable to work with someone so very interesting and ignore their professional capabilities, Maura had researched the Detective and found she was the youngest female Officer ever to be promoted to Homicide, and she had quite an impressive arrest and conviction rate. Most likely the highest in her department. Perhaps that is why the Doctor felt so drawn to her. It wasn't unusual for two capable female colleagues to forge necessary alliances in such a male dominated profession...

No, The Doctor thought with a shake of her head, covered with a surgical cap to prevent trace evidence from collecting on the prone body beneath her, Why should this woman want to be friends with the 'Queen of the Dead?'

Oh, she had picked up on the rather tasteless nickname her colleagues had dubbed her with. She wasn't so entirely inept that she failed to notice the whispers as she left a room, the lowered heads that refused to meet her eyes when she asked for results or enquired about a particular case.

Such things used to leave her feeling more than a little lost. Now, it was to be expected.

The odd thing was that this woman, standing here, watching with a quiet intensity even as her foot tapped out an incessant rhythm on the floor, had never once muttered under her breath around the Doctor, or made a callous remark, or commented on her ability to converse with the dead on this intimate level. Not to her knowledge anyway.

There was also this matter of Charles Hoyt. Even the man's name sent a surge of inexplicable rage through Doctor Maura Isles. This again, in itself, was strange. Such things never affect her. The vessels that end their lives on her autopsy table are where her work begins and ends. The men and women who were the cause of their deaths do not concern her, unless some information about them pertains to her discoveries.

Doctor Isles glanced up, pushing the goggles resting comfortably on the bridge of her nose up just a little with the back of a gloved hand as she squinted at the Detective.

Detective Rizzoli was no longer concentrating on the autopsy. That much was clear, even to Maura.

Her dark eyes, despite the fact they were directly in line with the hand embedded currently in the dead woman's chest, were looking, and yet not seeing. Maura's brow furrowed in confusion as she followed the Detective's line of sight down to her hand and then back up again, attempting to…

Oh.

The scalpel.

Maura slowly pushed the slip of cool metal a little further into supple flesh and watched as Detective Rizzoli's eyes matched each movement, sliding along skin with the scalpel, moving simultaneously with Maura's hand, mirroring each careful incision.

"It's merely an instrument Detective. Not every instrument plays the same tune."

A soft voice announced. Maura jumped slightly when the Detective's dark eyes shot up from the body and the scalpel making its mark and landed on her eyes.

She hadn't meant to speak those words aloud.

Blushing faintly, Maura dipped her head again, concentrating fiercely on the task at hand.

Neither of them spoke until Maura was slowly and delicately stitching the body closed. She dedicated time to this. Not many Medical Examiners did so, knowing that now the corpse had been explored and rinsed for all its potential information, this job was nothing more than a finality. Who would care if the stitches were misaligned or coarse or haphazard?

Maura Isles cared. Everything deserved her care and attention. It was her duty to speak for the dead, and she would treat that duty with respect until the last stitch had been made.

The shadow that fell across the body gave the Doctor a moment's pause, but she chose to focus intently on the final few stitches rather than meet the eyes boring into the back of her head.

She did not want to cause this woman any unnecessary pain or humiliation. The words had just slipped out and danced off the edge of her normally so restrained tongue before she could prevent them.

"What did you mean by that…? 'Not every instrument plays the same tune?'"

Although she has heard the Detective's voice in the past, of course she has, they have been working together for a month… It never fails to startle her. The hoarseness of it. The depth. How it seems to have so many layers despite the often simple sentences she chooses to use so as not to overstate her intelligence. For the first week, Maura assumed the Detective was suffering from a slight cold. Over time, she grew to realise that the huskiness was completely natural.

There was nothing accusatory in the question. Maura thought she could detect confusion, and perhaps curiosity, but it wasn't threatening in any way.

She relaxed slightly, and glanced up. The sight caught her off guard.

Detective Jane Rizzoli was a powerful figure. With her height and stature and intensity, it was no wonder she never failed to command respect and attention from her colleagues.

But there, in that moment, looking down at the smaller woman, there was vulnerability in her rather angular, almost sharp features. It was more open than she had ever seen it.

There was anguish, yes; there it was in the crease of her forehead. Again in the yet to be explored world of her impenetrable eyes. And there, in the drooping corners of her mouth.

The mask had slipped.

Maura straightened, drawing the white sheet over the body with a reverence, and then deposited her tools in the nearby station for sterilization.

As she pulled off her saturated gloves, Maura said, without looking at the other woman, "Tools such as this one," she pointed one finger at the scalpel lying still and innocent in the tray, "Can be used for obscene things."

And although neither realised it, both sets of eyes instinctively moved towards the raised, irritated welts in the palms of the Detective's hands, which almost incessantly fiddled with one another at any given moment. Long fingers would run the length of the scars and push and squeeze, leaving the tender flesh red and angry looking.

Those hands.

Strong enough to wield a gun, strong enough to tackle suspects and bring them to their knees.

Those hands.

Tanned and lean and complete with long, dexterous fingers.

Those hands.

Damaged, almost beyond repair. Scarred forever.

Maura missed the blush heating the Detective's cheeks at being so exposed.

"But, that's what they are. That is all that they are. Inanimate objects. Tools. Instruments." Maura finally shifted her gaze and met the dark eyes fighting to hold the connection emerging in the very air between them, beating out a path through the barren wilderness surrounding them both so entirely and not look away in embarrassment, "Not one single instrument will ever produce identical notes."

Maura nodded slightly, maintaining eye contact with her colleague, "They all play different tunes Detective."

The dark haired woman released a tremulous breath, sending one unruly strand of hair fluttering in front of her eyes. With a sharp nod, she took a large step back and shot a quick smile at the Doctor as she walked backwards in the general direction of the exit, "You'll have the report ready soon?"

Doctor Isles nodded, careful to school her features in neutrality, sensing that whatever had just transpired was now at an end. "Within the hour," She replied, using her flat tone of utter professionalism.

Maura assumed the Detective had left the morgue having heard the door swing open and a gust of cool air blow in, ruffling her hair slightly.

Then she heard that unique voice for the final time.

"Thanks Doc."

And she was left with a tray of bloodied instruments to clean, a yet to be identified body lying on her autopsy table, a pile of reports to deal with and a wry smile on her face.

A/N: Because the origin of their friendship interests me endlessly. Also, that scene in season three where Jane picks up the scalpel, something that was used to skewer her hands, and casually announces 'This looks very sharp' made me want to crawl out of my own skin in frustration. This is kind of the result of that.